Month: January 2019

Plans are made to be executed and this one is the monthly maintenance purchase for the secondary growth portfolio. I bought 100 shares of NEL ASA for 5,28 NOK per share. Tiny purchase but I’m hoping to get some below 5 NOK. Let’s see if that happens as the sector seems to be steaming ahead nicely.

Busy day today. Apple Inc. posted a revenue cut yesterday and dropped post market and today. I was tempted to add on it but decided to execute a swap with remaining Diageo shares. I sold all the remaining 30 shares for 138,53 USD per share. In retrospect I should have sold all of the shares back when I sold the first 20 shares but that’s not a big deal. I still consider the the valuation to be a bit stretched and yield is on the low side though growing. I deployed some of the money back to Sampo Plc and Apple Hospitality REIT – both equipped with seemingly much better valuations and yields. I bought additional 100 shares of Apple Hospitality REIT for 14,19 USD per share and 30 shares of Sampo Plc for 38,36 EUR per share.

Now that I’ve exited the whole Diageo position it’s time to check to results. I bought to original 50 shares for 5497,98 USD and sold the shares for the total of 7048,17 USD. Realized capital gains were therefore 1550,19 USD before taxes and commissions. Total dividends received came in at 435,01 USD before taxes. This is a result I’m very pleased with. I still like the company and it’s very likely that I’ll buy back these shares if the price comes down to 110 USD per share range.

Another year has passed and it’s time to take a look at the results. Sentiment really changed towards the end of the year and we saw quite dramatic volatility. The problems however are the same old ones: Trump presidency & trade war tensions, weak EU & brexit and possibly slowing global economy. There’s no doubt that we have been closer to the end of the cycle than to the start of it. Who knows when the real turn will happen – it could be happening already or it might still be years away. Looking back at the results, it’s clear that I got what I wanted and managed to follow the strategy I’ve set to myself.

Dividend income for whole year was 5 373,07 EUR (4 450,93 EUR during FY2017)

Primary portfolio performance was -0,36% during the whole year

Debt ratio was maintained at or close to the planned 10% of the portfolio market value

What will happen in 2019 then? I don’t personally expect big changes going forward. We are likely to see even extreme volatility on index level but I don’t see strong reasons for changing the existing strategy. I will continue to buy and will aim to make at least one purchase per month for the main portfolio. For the secondary portfolio I’ll probably make one small purchase per month or one per quarter at the minimum. ETF portfolio will get a small buy each month and will be funded from the primary portfolio dividends.

I’ll keep an eye on few things: high yield companies with reasonable debt loads (as we might see mainly sideways movement for the next couple of years), quality companies with significant cash positions (which might be thrown overboard when the overall market tanks and which are in great position to deploy cash during a downturn) and advanced technologies such as brain-machine-interfacing, fuel cells & hydrogen economy. High yielding candidate could be e.g. Apple Hospitality REIT or Nordea Bank. Quality companies with significant cash positions would be the likes of Apple Inc. or Berkshire Hathaway. Advanced technologies will be much more difficult to cover. NEL is obvious candidate and it might be accompanied by PowerCell Sweden. Brain-machine-interfacing will require extensive analysis if I intend to find a suitable for addition for the secondary portfolio.